Split gate non-volatile flash memory cells having a word line (WL) gate, a floating gate, and an erase gate are well known in the art. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 7,315,056, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
As non-volatile memory cells have reduced in size, it becomes more challenging to fabricate such memory cells in terms of self-aligned elements, and reduced numbers of processing steps (e.g. masking steps, poly deposition steps, etc.). Accordingly, it is one of the objectives of the present invention to simplify the fabrication process as the memory cells continue to shrink in size.